AZORIA - 2011

Azoria. D. Haggis (ASCSA/ Chapel Hill) and M. Mook (ASCSA/Iowa State) report on the fifth season of conservation, documentation and study in 2011.

Study of the building on the peak of the South Acropolis originally excavated by Harriet Boyd in 1900, documented three architectural phases: (1) a large rectangular Archaic building, possibly an early temple, and (2-3) two superimposed Hellenistic round towers. The earlier tower, 14m in diameter and with a diagonal interior wall, is similar in construction to contemporary towers on Siphnos. The later tower, overlapping the earlier, consists of two concentric walls ca. 6.35m in exterior diameter. Similar in form and construction to a signal tower at Chondros, it was probably a beacon rather than a watch tower. The first tower may reflect the furthest extent of Praisian territorial interests in response to Hierapytna’s expansionism, with the later tower established by Hierapytna to mark its control over the north Isthmus.

Pottery studies focused principally on the early stratified deposits in order to understand the chronology of the Archaic rebuilding of the site and the sixth-century occupation phases. Pithoi from a storeroom of the Service Building were reconstructed (at least nine pithoi were contained in this 11m² room at the time of the early fifth-century destruction).